Letters for November 8, 2007

Custom costumes?
Reno, being a big seedy and down-at-the-heels city, is custom made to become a showcase for an annual Halloween week festival that would draw tourists by the thousands from California which, with its sleek office parks and trim lawns, is far too clean and modern to host a decent Frightmare before Christmas.

The ghoul green ad for Halloween Hollow drove me downtown to creep around and what great fun it was. Each artist-decorated window was a world unto itself. And the downtown merchants totally got into the spirit of things, peering out into the night with treats for the lil tricksters.

The free magic show was a hoot, as was the MC who ad-libbed a hilarious commentary during a 50-kid costume contest.

My only complaint were the dozens of people wearing the exact same costume! What’s with all the Reno 911 wanna-bes? I thought pirates were the big thing this year. What’s with all the cops?

Pat Patera
Washoe Valley

Hmm
Re “Finding Steve Fossett” (Arts&Culture, Oct. 11):

Regarding the article on the psychic’s feelings about Steve Fossett: I am a cartographer by training, and I recognized the numbers given by Mrs. Terry and Mrs. Peacock as coordinates for a map.

I came up with 38 03’ 07"N and 119 49’ 14"W.

Check it out on Google Earth. It looks like two small plane wings in a small lake surrounded by trees. The reason I got these numbers is quite simple. 38 and 119 are obviously major degree coordinates, 3 and 7 were repeated by Mrs. Terry, 4 and 9 also with 49 being Mrs. Peacock age and numbers said by Mrs. Peacock. The 14 being repeated is quite simple, one of the 14s is for 14"W, the other is the date that this came to me—14 October 2007.

I sent this information to the Steve Fossett search team, but I have not heard anything from them.

Mike Pannell
Dunsborough WA, Australia

Back to school
To all present and former college students who are destined to spend their entire lives paying student loans: You may have grounds for a full or partial refund.

Here’s why: The role and duty of a university is to prepare this country’s future leaders for their responsibilities. They do this by instilling in their students the tools and knowledge necessary to make the correct decisions regarding self-government.

I think we can all agree that most college graduates either whole-heartedly or complacently supported Bush’s attack, invasion and occupation of Iraq.

If the universities had done what they were being paid to do, their graduates would have known that a U.S. attack on Iraq was the height of self-destructive lunatic stupidity.

The proof is in the pudding: It is obvious that schools have failed to live up to their responsibility to properly educate their students and therefore they own them a refund.

And to prove beyond a shadow of a doubt the monumental failure of our universities, just look how few college graduates are marching in the streets against a very likely, suicidal, Bush-instigated war with Iran.

I rest my case.

Dan Argabright
Reno

Bottled up
Re “Consumers’ choice” and “Drinking points” (Letters to the Editor, Oct. 25):

The two recent responses to bottled water from the bottlers were appropriate. They were trying to protect their turf.

And while they tout it as ‘consumers rights', and claim it is a highly regulated ‘food,’ there are a few things we must remember:

Bottled water is more expensive per quantity than beer.

It’s more expensive than gas.

So far.

It takes tremendous amounts of clean water to make the bottles and transport and dispose of them.

It also takes a lot of gas to do all that—higher prices.

It is a symptom of a culture gone crazy.

Much of the world has NO clean water and millions die annually because of that.

By drinking it we’re robbing resources from our kids.

It’s really really, really lame.

Craig Bergland
via email

No shit
Just a year ago, the RN&R endorsed Dean Heller as the “reasoned, moderate voice for wise public policies” candidate for the House of Representatives. Heller’s “temperament and moral compass” has allowed him to fall in step with the GOP and not create an independent thought for himself. Understandably, one has to ingratiate oneself with the party faithful to get appointed to important committees; however, moving lock-step with the GOP does not create the impression of questioning the current administration that has been wrong again and again on both foreign and domestic policies. Heller has not lived up to the N&R’s incorrect assessment, and your endorsement may have influenced many moderate voters looking for a change in Washington, DC. This is not an issue of a liberal paper endorsing a Republican candidate. You asked us to “trust us on this one;” unfortunately, you may have lost the trust of voters in the future.

Eric and Marianne Denton
Reno